


rest stops aren't always for resting

by elimurphy



Series: liminal stuff [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Cryptids, Horror, liminal spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28450140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elimurphy/pseuds/elimurphy
Series: liminal stuff [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083875





	rest stops aren't always for resting

The sun was barely out, and by this point they’d been driving for a couple of hours, mostly filling their time with pointless arguing. Vacation stress does it to you, and they both knew this was the reason, but still continued with eye-rolling, occasional shouting, and passive-aggressive remarks. It wasn’t serious, though, they just functioned this way as a couple - preferred expressing all the emotions, no matter how negative, instead of bottling them up and waiting for some minor thing to cause the explosion.

Maybe tiredness also played a part. They were new to the world of couple vacationing, so when they agreed to skip the night’s sleep and drive until morning, neither saw any flaws in the plan.

“We should’ve stayed there until morning! I’m so fucking tired!” the woman moaned, completely ignoring what her boyfriend just said.

“I told you that, but you insisted on going! I’m tired as well, and I have to drive, so you can’t complain as if you have it the hardest!”

“Well, I will complain anyway! I told you I could drive for a bit. And what did you say? ‘I don’t trust you at the wheel.’  _ You  _ said that, don’t blame me for that!”

The man took a deep audible breath, and the woman sank deeper into her seat and turned her face to the window, folding the arms on her chest. After a moment of silence, the car ran over something almost making them fly off the road. 

“Are you even watching the road?!” the woman shouted, throwing her hands up “What was that?!”

“I am! There wasn’t anything on the road; there must be something wrong with the car. I’m pulling over, I need to make sure that,” he gestured vaguely with one hand, “everything is alright.”

He pulled over noticing the surprising absence of cars on the freeway. He got out of the car and quickly walked around it looking for any obvious signs of damage. There weren’t any; everything seemed perfectly fine. He went through everything twice, just in case, but nothing looked out of order. He shrugged and thought to himself that it was probably just a small rock they ran over – and just overreacted. 

“So, what happened?” the woman asked through the open window.

“Everything seems fine,” he said, with a slight undertone of worry in his voice, “Maybe we should stop at the next rest stop and I’ll check it more thoroughly.”

“Oh, we should have stayed until morning!” she moaned.

“Yeah-yeah, we should have stayed,” he rolled his eyes while getting back into the car.

They drove off after checking the map for the nearest rest stop. It was only a few kilometers away, so it didn’t seem too bad of an idea to try and get there instead of staying and waiting for help. And there was also a possibility of someone else being there, someone who knew at least something about cars unlike them.

They were driving in silence and actually enjoyed it; it was obviously nicer than arguing while also worrying about the possibility of their car breaking down completely in the middle of nowhere without a single soul around and with no phone reception. It would be even nicer to simply talk, distracting themselves from this worry, but it wasn’t an option. 

They got to the rest stop without any troubles, and without saying a word to each other. The rest stop was empty, there was only one car parked. They parked fairly close to it and got out of the car. The woman went off to get something to eat at a vending machine, and the man proceeded to check the car again.

The man walked around the car once more, this time noticing a small scratch on the left headlight he hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t sure whether it had been there before – he wasn’t a type of person to check the car often, let alone check it thoroughly. He raised the hood and bended over, staring at the entrails of this mechanical beast without much of an idea of how things were supposed to look so he could say that they looked right. Nothing seemed out of order as it usually is when you don’t know how order looks. But things  _ seemed  _ right, and it was enough for him. 

There wasn't anyone around to tell him he was wrong, and it didn’t help the situation. He touched some things, looked at them some more with an expression of a student taking an exam he wasn’t prepared for, and remembered that there was another car at the rest stop. Maybe there was someone more competent sitting in it, just waiting for some dumbass to pour their wisdom upon. 

The man kept the hood up and walked towards the other car. He looked around and there were no people around except his girlfriend who was impatiently punching the vending machine. So if there wasn't anyone outside, they must have been in the car. 

He cleared his throat and bended down, preparing to ask for help while trying not to sound like a complete idiot.

He peered through the window on the driver’s side and saw no one at first, and after a second – a small child sitting at the back seat. The kid seemed to be seven or eight at max. And they didn’t react to the man looking at them in any way. They only stared back with a blank expression, not blinking, and not moving.

The man lightly tapped the window, hoping that the kid would pay attention to him. The kid kept staring, but now their thin lips started to form an ominous smile.

“Hey there! Why are you alone in the car? Where are your parents, kid?” the man raised his voice, hoping that the child could hear him, and knocked on the window a few more times.

No response. No reaction, except the smile that now looked painfully wide.

The man took a few steps back before he felt the arm touching his shoulder and flinched in fear. He sharply turned around and saw his girlfriend with a box of sandwiches and a bottle of coke in one hand and with one arm raised as if she was a student asking for permission to talk. Her face was a face of pure confusion.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.

“The kid. There. Inside. Look,” he stuttered, pointing at the car’s window. She kept her eyes on him for a moment, her lips pursed as she tried not to laugh at his panicked expression.

“Just look!” he repeated, taking her by the shoulder and lightly pushing her to the car. She bended down and looked inside. The kid now blankly started forward while sitting in the same position. But now they were sitting in the middle seat without the belt on.

“It’s just a kid, why are you so freaked out?” she turned her head looking even more confused.

“No, no! Keep looking!” he pointed at the window again without actually looking at it. He tried to avoid getting even the smallest peek at the kid. Those thirty seconds of eye contact he shared with them were more than enough. Something just seemed off about them. Something small and insignificant in the most ominous way.

The woman reluctantly looked at the kid again. As she turned her head, she saw them sitting on the seat closest to them, now looking – no, staring – at them with wide tear-filled eyes, and had the same creepy wide smile as before.

“Oh, what the fuck?!” she turned her whole body in a sharp motion just so she didn’t see their face anymore. And after realising she was standing with her back almost against the window she practically leaped forward. “What’s wrong with this child?” she asked, now in a quiet voice. She looked utterly terrified.

“I don’t fucking know,” the man says, defeated, “could be a prank, though.”

“Who puts their kid alone in the car in the middle of nowhere as a prank?”

“True.”

“We should just get out of here. Fuck this place and this…kid,” the woman said walking towards their car. The man walked behind her.

“Can we just leave them there? What if something’s wrong?” the man asked, clearly conflicted. Seeing that kid again was the last thing he wanted to do, but at the same time, what if this kid was in trouble? What if something happened to their parents and now they were all scared and alone? What if they were just messing around to cope with boredom?

“There is something wrong! This…,” she gestures at the car behind her back, “creature is wrong! The only thing it misses is jet-black eyes or some shit like that to be a monster from a shitty horror movie!”

The man didn’t say anything in response. He saw her point, and, in any case, he was way more scared than worried about some random kid.

“Is the car fine? Can we go?” the woman asked, waiting for her boyfriend to unlock the doors.

“Not sure.” The doors clicked and unlocked.

“Good enough.” The woman got in and put on the belt. She saw her boyfriend still standing and looking at the car with the creepy child. “C’mon, let’s just go!”

“Yes, we’re going,” he said blankly. He decided it would be better if he didn’t mention that the  _ kid _ was now standing outside the car, maniacally watching them through the windows. 

They drove off; they ate the sandwiches they were meant to eat while fixing the car with the help of another competent person they were meant to find in another parked car. But the car was going rather smoothly and the sandwiches tasted fairly alright, so everything was good enough just the way it was. 

They agreed to never talk about it again, and it was the first time they agreed on something that day.

  
  



End file.
